I reveled on the fringe,
gathered my skirts...

I loved to love and hated
my love of the tainted love
that drowned out the sounds
of drowning men in the sea of
modernity. I scoffed at excess
and drew perpendicular lines in the
sand, announcing myself the prophet
of the ages, an oracle of poetry.

Quickly, without fanfare, I bored myself,
my instigations, infatuations,
insinuations and recriminations--caught up in
a two-step of an endless loop. My DNA
was shouting mad. I became mad. I
lost myself in the abyss, everything screamed
and begged for mercy. But I was a cannibal,
I ate everything on my plate.

August rain is falling, and the noise deafens
my fortitude. I am weak with the insistence
of myself.

I will dance as long as my breath remembers how,
in spite of myself. I still write poetry.